Getting the facts straight on Obamacare

Anti-Obamacare activists claim that the healthcare law will have a negative impact on employment. Chris Hayes tell us why that isn't the case.

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This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>>>so, with
health care
exchanges set to open for enrollment on
october 1st
, we are just eight days away from the effective launch of
obama
care. and while
ted cruz
and his threats are soaking up a lot of attention, it's easy to lose sight of the fact we are very close to a pretty incredible day in the history of
american health care
. and so, it is no surprise, the right wing has gone into overdrive in trying to shape the narrative of that day before it happens. not least by once again sewing the seeds of misinformation about the impact of law. i was on hbo's "realtime with
bill maher
" on friday night when i got to encounter a real-life example of this from the mouth of republican speechwriter and journalist
david frum
, who said the following --

>>it is about to have a very likely devastating impact on american employment. we can already see the rise of part-time labor and the fallaway of --

>>well, we don't know that.

>>we do see that, because if your workers work less than 30 hours, you're exempted, and we have seen, that's where the growth in the
labor market
is.

>>i should be clear, this is not just a
david frum
thing. this is a huge, consistent, anti-
obama
care talking point.

>>companies are increasingly blaming the
health reform
law for the rise in part-time work.

>>they're moving towards far more part-time work, that is less than 30 hours a week.

>>president obama
never sold the affordable
care act
to the
american people
by saying, look, this is going to create more part-time jobs in the place of full-time jobs, and yet, that's one of the big consequences of the bill.

>>and i should be clear, this is also not just coming from the right. this notion that
obama
care is killing full-time jobs has seeped into the
mainstream media
as well.

>>we have confirmed more than 100 emory
health care
employees are going to lose their jobs in part because of the affordable
health care
act.

>>turns out, that wasn't so much confirmed as, well, untrue. as "the atlantic" pointed out, top officials said the layoffs have nothing to do with
obama
care. that's a quote. and frum and his allies don't have to t right, either. here's what i told them on "realtime." the trend in an increase towards part-time work precedes the passage of
obama
care. we should be clear on this. this is probably a larger structural
labor market
trend. i wanted to circle back to that point to emphasize the point with actual data which i didn't have access to while at
bill maher
's table. look at this chart. i wish i could have drawn this chart in that moment. there was indeed a huge spike in part-time work, but it came with the great recession in
2008
and the
financial crisis
. since then, involuntary part-time employment, that is, workers who would like to work full-time jobs but are stuck in part-time jobs has trended downward. this is part and parcel of the broader republican case against
president obama
, which is to basically blame everything that has happened because of the worst
financial crisis
in seven years on the president himself. it isn't to say there aren't employers who say
obama
care is forcing them to cut hours, but as economist mark zandi has pointed out, the claim that
obama
care is causing some large-scale shift to part-time work is simply not borne out by the data. if
obama
care is going to be the disaster conservatives say it will, we will all know that very shortly. there is no reason to lie about it ahead of time. if anything, republicans should be excited for the experiment to start so they can be proven right. the fact that they're so intent on spinning ahead of time shows that they're actually nervous the